Apple co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs died at the age of 56 of cancer. The Silicon Valley icon who gave the world the iPod and the iPhone resigned as CEO of the world's largest technology corporation handing the reins to current chief executive Tim Cook. Steve Jobs, the Apple founder and former CEO, invented and masterfully marketed ever-sleeker gadgets that transformed everyday technology, from the personal computer to the iPod and iPhone.

Jobs started Apple with a high school friend in a Silicon Valley garage in 1976, was forced out a decade later and returned in 1997 to rescue the company. During his second stint, it grew into the most valuable technology company in the world.

Cultivating Apple's countercultural sensibility and a minimalist design ethic, Jobs rolled out one sensational product after another, even in the face of the late-2000s recession and his own failing health. He helped change computers from a geeky hobbyist's obsession to a necessity of modern life at work and home, and in the process he upended not just personal technology but the cellphone and music industries. For transformation of American industry, he has few rivals. But this is the other side of Jobs that most probably don't know or forget.